Thursday, July 16, 2015

Shipwrecked On a Deserted Island? Pass the Soap!

by Pam Hillman"With this Spark" Historical Romance Collection released last week and lit a spark on Amazon! Within 48 hours it was on the Hot New Releases for historical fiction. All of us in the collection were tickled to death that readers are loving this collection so much.

I had a blast (literally!) writing Castaway with the Cowboy, my contribution to the collection. When an explosion sinks their steamship, horse wrangler Zach Holifield and nanny Abby Lindstrom find themselves stranded on a deserted island in the Caribbean. Along with Abby’s two charges, a cabin boy, and a couple of missionaries, Zach and Abby struggle for survival, normalcy, and a chance to live, to love, and to grow old together.So, I'm happily writing along all the way to the end--which is a humdinger, btw--when my copy editor stumped me with a question...

My heroine talked about washing their clothes when they find water and the copy editor wanted to know where'd she'd get soap, since they'd barely escaped the sinking ship with their lives. What a wonderful question! And one that sent me on a quest to find out how many ways Abby could make soap on a deserted island in the Caribbean.

I was surprised to find that making soap doesn’t require some magic ingredient or special containers. Making soap isn’t as difficult as you would think. All you need is animal fat/grease—or vegetable/plant oil, water and ashes. And women in the past would have learned at an early age how to save their ashes and leach them to get lye.

The primary ingredient is the potash or pearl ash from ashes. Pure potash can be achieved by leaching wood ashes. To do this under primitive conditions, take a small container with a small hole or holes punched through the bottom.

Place a one-inch layer of gravel or sand in the bottom of the container, and a one-inch layer of sand (aha, perfect for our characters stranded in the Caribbean!) on top of the gravel. The gravel and sand act as filters.

Fill the container with ashes from a cooled campfire. Place another container under the first container to catch the runoff and slowly pour about a gallon of water over the ashes allowing a brownish-gray water (the lye) to exit through the bottom into the second container.

Pour slowly. If the ashes start to “swim”, you are pouring the water too fast. During this process, if the lye coming out starts to lose its color, more ash can be added.

Next, boil the lye water until more than half of the water has evaporated. The mixture may foam, and the resulting solution is potash.

Next, add 1 ½ cup of lard, grease or animal fat to the boiling mixture and continue cooking for about 30 minutes. If using animal fat, make sure it is free from meat or food particles as the soap may spoil if during the drying process if the fat used isn’t pure.

Lovely Handmade Soap at Inn the Oaks B&B, Decatur, MS

When the desired consistency is reached, place the mixture into molds. The shape doesn’t matter: a wooden mold carved from a tree limb, a small coconut shell, seashells, anything will do. Let the mixture dry for about two days, then remove from the mold.

Once my characters managed to leach enough lye from their ashes, all they’d need to do would be to find enough animal fat or some type of oil to make their soap for washing and bathing. Goats, pigs, and sheep are sometimes found on islands, so that would be one source for animal fat.

Coconut oil (with flakes of coconut) makes excellent soap, as does the oil from eucalyptus leaves, or any vegetable oil will do. And you can also make soap from goat’s milk. I’d venture to say that soap made from goat’s milk is softer than say, something made with lard, even on a deserted island. So I can see the women preferring to bath with this softer, gentler soap.

www.candleport.com
Sweet Cotton - Wonderful Fresh Scent

When researching this post, I read that if your soap is too soft, toss in a bit of salt the next time, so that made me wonder if seawater would be a good thing or bad. So, off to google again…

Yep. You can. Just google “sea salt soap recipe”. Amazing.

Abby—and the missionary’s wife stranded along with her—probably wouldn’t have cared about adding a lot of delicate scents to their soap or how harsh or brittle it was, but I imagine with the bounty of flora and fauna found on an island, they’d want to experiment, wouldn’t they?Can you think of scent they could add to their soap to give it a pleasing aroma? Something that would be found on an island in the Caribbean. Do you enjoy homemade soaps? If so, what’s your favorite scent?

CBA Bestselling author PAM HILLMAN was born and raised on a dairy farm in Mississippi and spent her teenage years perched on the seat of a tractor raking hay. In those days, her daddy couldn't afford two cab tractors with air conditioning and a radio, so Pam drove an Allis Chalmers 110. Even when her daddy asked her if she wanted to bale hay, she told him she didn't mind raking. Raking hay doesn't take much thought so Pam spent her time working on her tan and making up stories in her head. Now, that's the kind of life every girl should dream of. www.pamhillman.com

32 comments:

Very interesting information. I think soap making is much easier now. Think I would dry some of the sweet scented flowers and infuse them into the oils to add a scent. Then add a litter of the dried flowers to the soap as well.

Pam R, so glad you stopped by!! :) Pam is 1/2 of Pam & Megan's Shoppe. Isn't that soap adorable? Pam & I got to know each other recently at a series of local workshops for Women in Agriculture called Annie's Project.

Pam, if you stop back by, can you tell us how infusing works? Is it something someone could have done over an open fire 100 years ago?

I believe it could be done. If you were to put the oil in a container with the dried flowers and place them on the outer edge of the fire to keep them warm but not hot for a few hours. If the oil got too hot it would fry the flowers. The strain the flowers before using. The same principle could be used with herbs to create healing salves.

Oooh, I would think so. Maybe some of our soap makers will chime in. Fresh, clean, saltwater sea air. As for the seagull noises, maybe they can put one of those little noise makers inside. I'll have the add some plastic fish for you, Mary. Will that do? lol

I enjoy a light scent, Tina. The Sweet Cotton up above smells nice, not overpowering, but clean and fresh. I thought it was perfectly named as well. I bought it at the Soule Steamworks Shop in Meridian, MS. It smells so nice.

Well, I didn't really know to begin with. But when my editor asked where they were going to get the soap, it just HIT me that they should be able to make soap. And since I happened to be in a six-week class with a bunch of hard-working ladies and some of them make soap, I asked around. So, there you go. Our ancestors made soap way before we had all the newfangled ways of doing it. Isn't it amazing that if you just want plain ol' lye soap, you can make it out of just about anything. Now, it might take the hide off of ya if you don't know what you're doing, but you can do it. lol

Sorry, PAM--NOT MARY! LOL This is really fascinating. My dad used to make lye soap and my mother would just roll her eyes and refuse to use it in the house. LOL (Of course, it was NOT scented and was really really rough.) These look like some great stories. I'm looking forward to getting to read them all--but this soap making thing just grabs me. Looks like a great story, Pam!Cheryl

It almost seems like a God thing that you can make soap from ashes and animal fat. Kind of like using animal poop for fertilizer. It's all a bit mind boggling. I wonder how people first figured out how to make soap.

cool post Pam! now I want to go try and make soap the "old fashioned" way. maybe try it with my five year old because everything is still fascinating to him. We have a ton of crepe myrtle blossoms in our yard (& one the tree) right now. somehow infuse that in? Hmmmm...

I really need to get the collection. I love how your editor's question enriched your knowledge and your story. so cool.

DebH, glad to get your creative soap thoughts going! :) But if you seriously start thinking of making any kind of soap, do your research. Lye is highly... something... it can burn the skin. BAD. That's all I know. I'm not even sure if there's a "kid friendly" way to make a mild soap. But if there is, you can find it online. Google is your friend. lol

Love how true you are to historical detail. And maybe it's because I'm hungry but I think pineapple soap would be a refreshing scent. LOL But coconut is good too...and it supposed to be really moisturizing as well.

Okay, well, I'm afraid I'd be tempted to eat the pineapple soap, Kav, so I'm not sure that's a good idea at the moment. Kinda like those apple pie scented candles. And worse is the sugar cookie ones. Oh my!

Heidi, I knew about the ashes too, but didn't know about "leaching" them to get the lye out. Modern-day homemade soap makers probably use pre-packaged lye. In my research, I ran across some they can buy.

Also, I gave the most basic instructions for making soap that I could come up with. I didn't want to bog the post with too much detail. And while making soap is doable, I'm going to guess that it's hard work.

My brother has made liquid laundry detergent and it sounds pretty time consuming to me. I'd probably fry my brain on the fumes ... what little I've got left!

Really liked this post as I enjoy homemade soaps and buy them often at fairs, festivals and historic sites. I would choose mango, pineapple or coconut flavored soap. thanks for your post. I'd love to read this novel collection. sm wileygreen1(at)yahoo(dot)com

Sharon, so glad you stopped by! I've been blessed to be included in several different collections this year as well as having Stealing Jake release in print in August. It's already shipping from Amazon, which is so exciting! And...if you're on Goodreads, I'm hosting a giveaway with 2 copies. I forgot to include the widget in today's post, but you can easily find it on Goodreads and enter the giveaway. Blessings!

Marvelous post, Pam. I remember making soap with my grandmother. Normally, she didn't use scents. Once, as a special request from my great-grandmother, she used a small bottle of store-bought perfume. Kids weren't allowed to wash-up with those bars, just Great Grandma Luler.

Oh, Linda, that is so sweet that your great-grandmother had her own sweet-scented soap. I read somewhere that women shaved small slivers of lye into the hot water when they were doing laundry, so I can see why most women wouldn't bother adding scents to the soap. It would be more time consuming to make and hubby and the boys would smell like a flower. So, I'm sure unscented was the order of the day--mostly. :)

European Union Countries

This site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services, to personalize ads and to analyze traffic. Information about your use of this site is shared with Google. By using this site, you agree to its use of cookies. Learn more here.

Mid-Month Madness

Coming May 15th

WINNERS!

********************APRIL WINNERS!

********************

Connie Porter Saunders won a copy of Daughters of Liberty by Joan Hochstetler

Caryl Kane and Connie Porter Saunders won a copy of The Chaplain's Daughter by Kathleen L Maher

Connie Tillman won an autographed copy of Sand Creek Serenade by Jennifer Uhlarik

CONGRATULATIONS!

GIVEAWAY RULES

Winners will be notified by email and the winners name will be announced in the days comments. No one under 18 can enter our give aways. No purchase is necessary.All winners have one week to claim their prize. USA shipping only. Offer void where prohibited. Odds of winning vary due to the number of entrants.

Blog Archive

GDPR and Cookies

This site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services, to personalize ads and to analyze traffic. Information about your use of this site is shared with Google. By using this site, you agree to its use of cookies. Learn more here.